Satellite measurements show that West Antarctica’s gravitational pull measurably decreased over three years because of lost mass due to melting ice, according to research published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Data from the European Space Agency's Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE), combined with "coarser" measurements from the NASA–German GRACE satellite, allowed scientists to look at changes in ice mass in small glacial systems and compare those to high-resolution measurements of Antarctica's gravitational field.

"They have found that the loss of ice from West Antarctica between 2009 and 2012 caused a dip in the gravity field over the region," according to a GOCE press release.

A study earlier this year showed that the world's two largest ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are melting at the fastest rates ever recorded. Another study, published in August, found that human-caused climate change has become the primary driver of glacial melt.

According to the European Space Agency, the rate at which ice is been lost from the West Antarctic ice sheet has increased by a factor of three each year since 2009.

"The gravitational fluctuation over the Antarctic Peninsula is small, but it’s further evidence that melting ice is fundamentally changing parts of the planet," Carl Engelking writes at Discover magazine's D-brief blog.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

FRIENDS: Now More Than Ever

Independent journalism has become the last firewall against government and corporate lies. Yet, with frightening regularity, independent media sources are losing funding, closing down or being blacked out by Google and Facebook. Never before has independent media been more endangered. If you believe in Common Dreams, if you believe in people-powered independent media, please support us now and help us fight—with truths—against the lies that would smother our democracy. Please help keep Common Dreams alive and growing. Thank you. -- Craig Brown, Co-founder

Further

Lookit These Kids Redux: Over 200 kids in Pennsylvania who defied their school's ban on joining last week's nationwide walkout transformed their ostensible punishment into Civil Disobedience 101 by turning their detention into a silent, moving sit-in. With the community offering support - and pizza - the #Pennridge 225 linked arms, wore the names of Parkland victims and declared the consequences of their actions "a badge of honor" to show "we’ll stand up for what is right."